


Not a coward anymore

by Kowala1000



Category: The 100 (TV)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-04-03
Updated: 2015-04-12
Packaged: 2018-03-20 23:52:12
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 7
Words: 9,003
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3669666
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Kowala1000/pseuds/Kowala1000
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Post 2x16 (spoilers!)</p>
<p>After Clarke Griffin leaves Camp Jaha, Nathan Miller can't stop thinking about the blonde princess and the unfairness of it all.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> My second fanfiction!
> 
> I am definitely all about the Bellarke, but recently have also fallen in love with supporting character Nathan Miller. I don't know why, but there it is. I'm thinking about maybe writing more in this story, but that might depend on the response. Would love any comments or suggestions! 
> 
> I don't own any of the characters, but Nathan Miller owns my heart!

The bad feeling in his gut started the moment Bellamy told the group that Clarke had left.

Raven cursed loudly. “Did you even try to stop her? Where the hell is she going? How the hell is she going to survive out there on her own?”

Bellamy exploded back in Raven’s face. “You think I didn’t beg her to come inside? After all this time, you think anything I say could convince Clarke once she’s made up her mind?” Bellamy paused and took a deep breath, and Nathan could visibly see his friend’s efforts to get his emotions under control. “Clarke’s gone. End of story. We all need to accept that and focus on how things are going to work now that the Ark is here.”

Nathan said nothing, which was pretty much par for the course. He was the good soldier, after all, Bellamy’s right-hand man. If Bellamy let Clarke go, then that was that.

But that wasn’t that. All throughout the rest of that day, and long into the night, Nathan felt bad. _Really bad_. He tried to let himself get distracted by the rambling efforts at conversation his dad kept directing his way, let himself participate in the hustling and bustling of this new camp. _Camp Jaha? They had to be kidding. It should be Camp Blake. Or even better, Camp Clarke._ Because she was the one who saved them all.

Nathan had been thinking a lot about Clarke lately, actually. More specifically, he had been thinking about the fact that he had always been a coward when it came to the blonde girl. He was one of the only members of the original 100 who had actually known Clarke before they had hit the ground. As the son of the Chief Guard, Nathan had lived on the same station and gone to school with both Clarke and Wells. All the rest of the kids in school had resented the hell out of them for their privilege, even though neither Clarke nor Wells had ever acted stuck up. Sure, both kids were a little too know-it-all-ish, but they had never acted like they were better than anyone else. Instead, the two of them had pretty much kept to their little clique of two, and they had seemed pretty okay with that.

Even though his interactions with her had been minimal, Nathan had nursed a bit of a crush on Clarke. She was beautiful, seemed kind, was so, so smart, tough and even funny. But he never acted on it, both because he was almost certain she would turn him down and because he didn’t want the other kids to know he liked the pretty, privileged princess. _Coward_.

When they hit the ground, he could have reached out to her. After all, getting sent down to Earth wiped the slate clean. He could forget about his former cowardice and maybe they could become friends. But they hadn’t even left the dropship before Clarke painted a target on her back, asserting in that seemingly-arrogant tone of hers that they shouldn’t open the dropship door.

Things only became worse when she tried to rally people to go to Mt. Weather. It became immediately clear that public sentiment was not on Clarke’s side, and he briefly contemplated stepping up on her behalf. Everything she said was right, even if she did say it in that slightly irritating tone that made a guy feel like an idiot. Then Bellamy had stepped into the thick of things, and began hypnotizing the crowd, appealing to their frustration with the class inequity on the Ark that had kept the majority of them starving, sick, imprisoned. The majority that certainly did not include Nathan. Nathan knew he was not as visible as the children of council members, but if they found out who he was…he kept his mouth shut and from then on out, he was determined to fly under the radar.

And so he did. He got in with Bellamy’s clan of enforcers pretty quickly, and managed to become well liked, even if he thought most of them were stupid, vicious or both. Soon, Bellamy started to trust him, and Nathan was surprised to find that he started to trust Bellamy, too. Nathan vaguely remembered his father mentioning Bellamy as a cadet with promise, way back before the Octavia debacle. He didn’t know exactly what had happened since then to make Bellamy want to don the mask of a mob boss, but he could see that underneath, Bellamy was a man of honor, of loyalty, and of heart.

Yet despite his genuine friendship with Bellamy and his appreciation for the status he got being Bellamy’s right-hand man, it still nagged at him whenever Bellamy argued with Clarke or the other kids ragged on her. He watched her give her everything she had for the survival of the group – her safety, her well-being, her health – and sometimes Nathan felt like no one really gave her the appreciation she deserved. So many times, he wanted to give her a friendly smile, to put an arm around her drooping shoulders, to tell her how amazing she was and that they couldn’t have survived without her. But he was one of Bellamy’s crew, and he didn’t want to rock the boat. So he did nothing. _Coward_.

Thankfully, he started noticed that Bellamy’s attitude about her had changed, right after they had captured the Grounder. He noticed the soft looks Bellamy would give Clarke when she wasn’t looking. (But Nathan was.) He noticed the respect in Bellamy’s eyes when Clarke was speaking, the admiration that would shine there when she did something badass. (Which was pretty much all the time.) And one day, Bellamy pulled him aside and asked him to always look out for Clarke, no matter what. Nathan didn’t know what had caused the change, but he was happy to oblige, even it caused an inexplicable twinge in his heart.

Nathan kept watching for the moment when Bellamy would let Clarke know how he felt, but that never happened. And then the Grounder attack came, and Nathan was pushing Clarke into the dropship with the doors closing on Bellamy and Finn.

Once they had gotten captured and taken to Mt. Weather, Nathan had had yet another chance to make it up to Clarke, to start their relationship on new footing. Instead, he had been too scared to listen to her – they were safe, they were warm, they were fed, and Clarke was threatening to ruin it all based on a hunch. So he ignored her concerns, had given her sass, called her ungrateful. Every time he thought about that interaction, he physically cringed in shame. He had sided with Jasper over Clarke, how messed up was that? _Coward_. And so she had had to go it alone, escaping on her own, making the hardest decisions on her own.

He mused on all of this as he lay awake on a cot in the room he shared with his dad on the now-grounded Ark. He could hear his dad’s soft snore, a surprisingly comforting sound. Things were better now, weren’t they? The grown-ups were here, they (Clarke!) had gotten all their people out of Mt. Weather, the mountain men were all dead, and for the time being, the Grounders would probably leave them alone.

Yet the unease in his stomach continued to grow. Nathan thought more and more about how unfair it had been for Clarke to have to shoulder the burden of responsibility for saving them. Bellamy had sought leadership, demanded it, even. Clarke never had, instead stepping up for the sole purpose of keeping them alive. _It wasn’t fair_. He started thinking about all the ways he could have acted differently in Mt. Weather, and how it could have changed everything. _If only I had listened to her about how suspicious everything seemed. If only I had tried to get everyone on her side. If only I had stepped up once she escaped and tried to launch an escape of our own. Maybe it would all be different. Maybe we could have spared the innocents of Mt. Weather. Maybe we could have saved Clarke’s soul_.

He sat bolt upright in bad. No. This wasn’t right. She shouldn’t be out there on her own, blaming herself for all that had happened. That wasn’t fair – all of them had forced her to take responsibility by not stepping up and taking action themselves, and he was maybe the worst of the lot because he could have done it. Could have stepped up, could have been more of a leader, could have helped shoulder some of the burden Clarke had taken entirely on herself. Bellamy might be willing to let her do that, but Nathan wasn’t. He swung his legs around, bracing both feet on the floor before bending down and grabbing his pack from under the cot. He had a couple of knives and a change of clothes, and a plastic bag for carrying water, and he was sure he could steal some supplies before he left. He just had to find a blind spot in the camp perimeter. He was going to find Clarke and stay by her side no matter what. And it wasn’t because he used to have a crush on Clarke. It was because it wasn’t fair, and because he wasn’t going to be a coward anymore when it came to her.


	2. Lost in the woods

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Post 2x16 (spoilers!)
> 
> After giving into his impulse to go after Clarke, Nathan starts to rethink his strategy.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay, we're not quite at the Nathan/Clarke stuff, but next chapter! I promise. These are just some more thoughts I have about what maybe our beloved Miller is really like.
> 
> I don't own any of the characters, but Nathan Miller (if he was a real person!) could own me if he wanted.

Three hours later, Nathan wished he had thought things through a little more instead of acting on a whim.  It was a good whim, and he didn’t regret his decision to follow Clarke.  He just sort of regretted starting his journey in the middle of the night…

He had managed to nab a packful of dried meat and a couple of bedrolls out from under a sleeping watchman in the supply depot.  He had seriously considered going back and adding a line about the incompetent guard in the short note he had left for his father:

  _Dad,_

_Please don’t freak out and please don’t worry.  I need to leave for a bit, but I’ll be back.  Clarke’s out there alone, and it’s not fair, and I’m trying to be a better man.  So just know that I love you a lot and hopefully the next time you see me, I’ll have a hot blonde on my arm._

_Nate_

It was maybe a little too glib given that his dad was probably going to be devastated, but Nathan didn’t know what else to say.  He and his father had never been particularly good with communicating their feelings to one another.  Nathan’s mother had died when he was small, and he had only fleeting memories of a sweet voice, singing him lullabies and a couple of photos of a younger, smiling David with a tiny, doe-eyed beauty.  After her death, David had thrown his entire life into his job and his son.  

Every waking moment he wasn’t at work, David tried to spend with his son, and Nathan knew his dad loved him more than anything in the universe.  But that didn’t mean that David knew Nathan at all.  No, David’s attention to his son consisted of hand-to-hand combat and weapons training, grunting at each other across dinner each night, silently watching old football games together.  They never really _talked_ to each other, and as a result, Nathan felt like his dad had no concept of the person Nathan had been back then – that Nathan really liked reading hard-boiled detective novels and comic books, that he had gone through a brief but intense country music phase, that Nathan loved to dance when no one was watching and to laugh, especially at bad puns and terrible standup comedy. 

Then again, Nathan didn’t feel like anybody really _knew_ him.  He used to watch Wells and Clarke talk and laugh together, so quick to be affectionate with one another – it was easy to see they were best friends, and Nathan wondered what it would feel like to be friends with them, or to have a best friend of his very own.  But Nathan had always been too scared to let anyone, even his father, especially his father, see what he was really like.  After all, he was the son of the Chief Guard – he couldn’t be soft, didn’t want to let down his dad or embarrass him. 

So instead, he tried to project this cool-as-ice persona, with a side of I-don’t-give-a-damn attitude that seemed fit his physicality.  That’s how he had gotten talked into stealing stuff for the so-called “bad boy” crew on Phoenix station.  Just one more way his cowardice had stopped him from being the person he actually was inside.  He thought back to David’s face the day they had sentenced Nathan to the SkyBox.  Panicked, sad, disappointed, heartbroken, screaming “why” at Nathan with his eyes.

Nathan shook the memory off, it was too hard to process.  He hoped his disappearance from camp didn’t cause a repeat of that long-ago day for his dad.  And he hoped he would have the opportunity to show his dad the person he had become while on the ground, because at the very least, despite his incarceration, Nathan _had_ become a good soldier, just not the kind David had imagined.  Nathan had earned his stripes on the ground with blood and death, instead of on the Ark with shooting competitions and test scores.  And Nathan thought he could become even more than that, if he was brave enough to try.  He hoped he’d be able to show his dad the person he was trying to become, if he could just find Clarke and bring her back. 

His thoughts returned to the female half of the 100’s leadership.  He doubted Clarke had ever once in her life been tempted to give in to cowardice.  She was stronger and fiercer than any person he knew, including Bellamy (who, for all his violent bluster, was a big softy on the inside).  Clarke was all steel, and would never let anyone, or anything stop her from being exactly who she was.  Nathan could only dream of having Clarke’s courage.  Which is why it was so messed up that she was out here alone, instead of back in camp, leading.

It was becoming increasingly obvious that being a good soldier did not equal being a good tracker, especially in the dark.  Nathan had no idea what direction he should be heading, or what he should be looking for to track Clarke.  That had been _Finn’s_ job.  He stumbled for what seemed like the twentieth time and fell headlong into a low-hanging branch, which knocked him off his feet and onto his back.  He lay there for a moment, wondering if he got points for effort.  Maybe they’d find his starved body in the woods someday and erect a statute to his attempt at bravery.  Maybe _Clarke_ would find his starved body in the woods and shed tears over him…

A soft, husky voice sounded in his ear.  A voice that, if he was being 100% honest with himself, he had heard in his dreams.

“Miller.  What the hell are you doing out here?”


	3. Late night reunion

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Post 2x16 (spoilers!)
> 
> Nathan finally catches up to Clarke...sort of. Can he convince her to let him stay?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This storyline will not let me go. I haven't quite decided where I want this to go (just friends? romance? unrequited love?), which is why it's kind of slow-paced. But I really love writing about Nathan Miller and about Nathan and Clarke, and I hope you all are enjoying it, too! Feedback is very much welcomed and appreciated!
> 
> I don't own any of the characters, but boy, do they own me.

Nathan didn’t move a muscle, just continued laying on his back in the dirt, eyes closed, as the girl he had come to find stood over him.  This was not going the way he pictured it.  No, he had imagined something more epic, or more romantic, or at the very least, more dignified. 

He opened his eyes.  Nathan could barely make out her face in the darkness, but what he could see was a combination of confusion and irritation.  He sighed. 

“Hey, Clarke.”

He heaved himself into sitting position.  She stood stock still, but her pretty features were quickly shifting more definitively into “irritated,” an expression that he had been on the receiving end of more than once, being one of Bellamy’s crew.     

“How’s it going?”  He risked a small grin.

“Miller, I -”

He stopped her short.  “You know, Clarke, now that my dad’s on the ground, you’re gonna have to start specifying which Miller you mean.”  Nathan held his breath, a weird hope fluttering in his chest.

“Nathan.”  He exhaled heavily, for some reason ridiculously relieved that she had remembered.  It had been awhile since anyone other than his dad had called him by his first name – certainly no one on the ground had – and he liked the way it sounded from her lips.

His grin widened.  “Clarke.”  Clarke rolled her eyes, something else he was familiar with from her.  “I’m guessing from that look on your face and the fact that you’re thrashing around in the woods by yourself the middle of the night that you’re not out here because there’s anything wrong back at camp.”

Nathan shrugged.  “Nope, everything is pretty much the same as when you left yesterday.”  He paused and dropped his gaze to the ground, since her big blue eyes, shining even in the blackness of the woods, were making it difficult to think.  How was he supposed to continue this conversation? 

His intention on starting this whole thing was to stop being a coward.  Should he just blurt out everything he had been feeling since Bellamy told them Clarke had left – that he was sorry for all the things he hadn’t done when it came to her, that he thought she was the bravest person in the entire world for all that she had done to save them, that in all the darkness they had faced since reaching Earth, she had been a beacon of light, that he would do anything if it would help heal what had been broken in her? 

Should he make one of his patented sardonic comments and hope she didn’t kick his ass all the way back to camp? 

He decided to chart a middle course.  “The only thing wrong is that you’re out here alone.”

Clarke leaned back against a nearby tree, her head very slightly tilted to the side as she studied him, brow furrowed.  Nathan took the opportunity to get back on his feet and find his own tree to lean against.  He waited.

Her face resolved itself into a very tiny smile, and for that, Nathan felt victorious.  Clarke’s smiles were rare, to the point that he couldn’t remember the last time he had seen one. 

“You know, Mi…Nathan, of all the people I would have expected to come after me…”  She trailed off, looked down and shook her head, smile completely gone.  “Never mind.  You have to go back.  You have your dad, and Bellamy and the other kids need you.”

“I could say the same of you.”  Again, he said nothing more, not wanting to push her past the breaking point in the first five minutes of finding her.

Clarke pushed herself off the tree and started walking past him.  “You don’t understand.  You can’t understand.  _I_ don’t even understand.  But I know I can’t go back.  Not now.  Not after all I’ve done.”

“Okay.”  He started following her, and she stopped so suddenly that he almost rammed into her.  She whirled around, placing a firm hand on his chest and shoving him back.  “Nathan!  I’m serious.  You need to go back to camp _now_.”  She crossed her arms and glared at him, clearly expecting him to follow orders, like the good soldier he was.

“Clarke, you decided to leave.  That’s your choice.  No matter who needs you, or who it hurts.  But guess what?  I’m a person, I get to make choices, too, and I choose to follow you.”  Nathan faltered for a moment as he watched her anger start to grow.  _Steady on, now, hold your ground_ , he thought to himself.  “Plus, I’m 100% sure I don’t know how to get back to camp on my own.  So either let me come with you or leave me to die out here on my own.”  He grinned again.

For a split second, as he watched her whole body tremble in frustration, he thought Clarke might actually punch him in the face, and he internally braced himself for the attack. Then her shoulders sagged and her frustrated expression was replaced by one of defeat.  “Nathan, I can’t do this with you right now.”  Her voice, usually so strong and confident, was tiny and unsure and hurt and sad, and Nathan felt a surge of shame because he had caused the change.   

 _Of course he had screwed this up_.  This was the longest one-on-one interaction Nathan had had with Clarke, and these were particularly intense circumstances.  Nathan thought about the people Clarke was closest to and how they dealt her.  Wells had been level-headed and calm with Clarke, but always treated her with a deference born of an unrequited love that was obvious to everyone but Clarke.  Finn had been charismatic and romantic, the very picture of Prince Charming.  Both Blake siblings were all rage and bluster and passion towards Clarke, save the increasing moments of protective tenderness Bellamy had started to exhibit towards his Princess.  Raven was all genius, jagged edges, and sarcasm, as the two girls navigated their complicated relationship towards something resembling mutual respect.  And Jasper and Monty (at least until Jasper had planted his head firmly up his own ass in Mt. Weather) treated Clarke both like a mother figure and savior.  As Nathan contemplated all of this he realized two things: first, none of these approaches would work for him.  Second, after Wells’ death, Clarke had lost the one thing he used to envy most about her – a _friend_.  She needed someone uncomplicated and unwavering, someone who wasn’t depending on her to take charge or make the hard decisions, and someone who wasn’t expecting anything from her in return.  It didn’t matter if he might just have feelings of a decidedly un-friend-like nature toward her – what mattered was what she needed right now and how he could provide it.

He reached out and lightly placed a hand on her shoulder.  “I know you’ve got some stuff to work through.  I think I do, too.  Would it maybe be okay if we watched each other’s backs out here while we do that?”

Her defeated expression didn’t change, but she also didn’t pull away from his touch.  Nathan waited, hardly breathing, for some indication that his strategy had worked or gone down in flames.  Finally, she gave him a barely perceptible nod and whispered, “Okay.”

The fist around his heart unclenched as he turned and grabbed one of the bedrolls out of his pack.  “Great.  You can start by carrying your share of the supplies and finding us a decent place to bed down for the night.”

He thought just maybe he glimpsed another one of those rare Clarke smiles as she took the bedroll and led them deeper into the woods.   _It was a start._


	4. The first step to atonement.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Post 2x16 (spoilers!)
> 
> Nathan and Clarke return to Mt. Weather.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is much darker chapter than the others, but I kind of felt like it needed to be dealt with before the relationship could develop any further. Rating upped to Teen for disturbing imagery.
> 
> I don't own any of the characters, but if Clarke and Nathan had a baby, I'd want to own it.

Nathan had never been much of a talker.  Consequence of growing up with a single dad, whose idea of scintillating dinner conversation consisted of drilling Nathan on proper Guard procedure and gun handling.  But even by his standards, the first day was uncomfortably silent.  Clarke plowed through the woods with a single-minded purpose and it was all he could do to keep up.  They broke at midday to share a pitiful lunch of jerky, nuts, and water, handing the food and drink back and forth to each other soundlessly, then kept going with Clarke leading the way.

He was so focused on not crowding her, not falling into any more tree branches, and not getting lost that he didn’t realize where they going until they were almost in the shadow of the mountain.  Clarke didn’t miss a step as she led him through the front entrance to the elevators.

Nathan hadn’t really thought in concrete terms about the cost of his freedom until the moment they stepped into Mt. Weather’s dining room and saw the bodies, the rot invading his senses.  He fell to his knees and vomited, only partially due to the smell.  Clarke stood motionless, her eyes never straying from the scene before them.  After a moment, she started to move, hauling the nearest body over her shoulder in a fireman’s hold and heading back to the elevator.  Nathan shook his head.  _He couldn’t do this.  This was too much.  Why would she do this to herself?  This was hell._  

He watched as she came back in and went to the next body, determination and despair written on her face in equal measure.  _This is why he came.  To help her in any way he could._ If she needed this, Nathan could be strong for her.  He wasn’t going to stand by and let her do it alone. 

Only once during that horrifying day did Clarke stop.  It was the first time she reached one of the smaller bodies, clothed in a bright pink cardigan and little tan slacks.  Nathan watched as she sank to the floor and put her head in her hands, trembling and opening her mouth in a silent scream.  He walked over and without saying a word, gathered the little bundle in his arms.

That night, they didn’t need to say a word to each other as they made camp outside.  Neither one wanted to spend a single moment more than they had to in that place of death.  Clarke waited until Nathan set his bedroll up, and then laid hers down on the other side of their small camp fire.  Nathan was exhausted and within moments, his eyelids started to droop.  The last thing he remembered was Clarke’s blue eyes shining in the moonlight, staring at nothing at all.

The second day proceeded much the same as the first, as Clarke and Nathan went wordlessly about their grim task.  But when the sun went down, Clarke set her bedroll up in line with his and curled up with her head just a foot away from where he had balled his jacket up as a makeshift pillow.   

On the evening of the third night, they finally finished.  They had piled the bodies onto a makeshift pyre at the foot of the mountain, and Nathan stood next to Clarke as she lit the gruesome heap.  They watched together as the flames burned higher and higher, and when Nate glanced over, he saw her eyes burning, too, brimming with unshed tears.  Nathan wanted nothing more than to reach out and hold her hand, or put a hand on her shoulder.  But he didn’t.  Nathan had helped, but this was an act of penitence for Clarke alone.  Then he heard her speak for the first time since that first night they had found each other in the woods.  “ _Yu gonplei ste odon_ ,” she whispered.  Nathan didn’t know what it meant, but somehow it felt right.

Later as they settled down onto their bed rolls, with the tops of their heads so close together they were almost touching and both their backs to the fire, he finally asked her the question he had been holding in since he had realized she left Camp Jaha.  “Clarke?  What were your other options?  Because where I was standing…my dad chained to the wall, all _our friends_ chained to the wall, waiting for them to drill the bone marrow out of us…”  He stopped.

The blonde head didn’t move at all, and at first he thought she hadn’t heard.  She finally spoke.  “I don’t know.   Maybe if I had just given Jasper a little more time to kill Cage…”

Nathan knew she couldn’t see him, but he shook his head.  “I mean, Cage was evil, no question.  But Clarke, all of those people, they spent generations under that mountain.  They captured and drained Grounders for _decades_ , Clarke.  There were people who would have done anything to get on the ground.  We would have never been safe.  They were willing to trade our lives to get out of that mountain.”

“Nathan, we… _I_ …killed people who _helped_ you.  Innocent people.  _I killed kids_.”  Her voice broke.  She said no more, but after a moment or two, he could see her whole body shaking.

Nathan realized there was no point in arguing with her.  The events of the last three days had shocked him into clarity and he thought maybe he finally understood a fraction of the enormity of the toll it had taken on Clarke’s soul to do what she had done to save their people. 

But he couldn’t let it completely go.  He had one more thing to say.  Nathan watched and waited for the shaking to subside.  “Hey, Clarke?” he said softly, not wanting to wake her if she had fallen asleep.  He was almost certain she hadn’t, though.

“Yeah, Nathan.”

“I know this doesn’t change anything, or erase what happened.”  Nathan took a deep breath.  “I just wanted to say thank you.  For my life.  For my dad’s life.  Just…thank you.”  He turned on his bedroll so he was facing towards the fire and her, then tentatively reached his hand out and left it there.

Just before he fell asleep, he felt her fingers intertwine with his and heard her whisper. “Thanks, Nate.”


	5. The healing continues.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Post 2x16 (spoilers!)
> 
> Clarke continues her atonement tour with a return to TonDC, and her bond with Nathan continues to grow.

Clarke was still holding his hand and asleep when he opened his eyes at first light.  Nathan was pleasantly surprised.  In the three days they had doing this, she had gotten up well before he even cracked an eyelid.

He thought back further.  Actually, he couldn’t remember a single day in camp when he had managed to get up before her.  The kids had a running joke that she and Bellamy ran on batteries, because you’d never catch either of them sleeping on the job.  Nathan knew that was an exaggeration – a time or two in the early days, he had had the unpleasant task of trying to wake Bellamy up without disturbing the girl (or two) tangled up in Bellamy’s blankets.  But Clarke?  The only time he had seen Clarke sleep was when she was recovering from that disgusting fever Murphy had brought back to camp ( _like a rat or a cockroach_ ) from the Grounders.  Even then, she hadn’t let it sideline her for long.  Clarke was an unstoppable force of nature, constantly in motion, doing what needed to be done, and  _now_.  The last three days were prime examples of that.  No matter how difficult, unpleasant or sickening the task, if Clarke believed it needed to be done, she did it, no delegation, no hesitation, just action.

But this morning, as the soft rays of sunshine began filtering through the tree branches, glinting off the gold in her hair, Clarke slept as peacefully as one could, her breath calm and even and steady.  Nathan was glad and grateful.  If anyone deserved a good night’s rest, it was Clarke.  In that moment, he would have given anything for her to be able to stay like this, even for just a few more minutes.

Even as he was thinking it, her eyelids started fluttering as she gradually woke up.

Nathan had steeled himself for the certainty that she would yank her hand out of his grip once she gained consciousness.   So he was completely unprepared when Clarke not only  _didn’t_  drop his hand, but pulled it closer to her chest, hugging it tight.  She said nothing, but shifted back to look up at him, deep blue peering through dark lashes.  Clarke gave his hand one final squeeze, sighed, then released him to stand and start packing up camp.

He didn’t ask her where they were headed next, because it was clear Clarke knew, and he didn’t have to.  Somehow  _that_  didn’t seem cowardly to him – it just seemed right.  They headed off into the woods once again.

This day was different, though.  She still didn’t speak, but instead of plowing ahead of him, never looking back, Clarke more or less matched her pace to his, only stepping ahead to provide direction.  Every so often, her hand would brush his and she’d glance up at him softly.  Nathan hoped he wasn’t just imagining it, but it seemed as though a tiny bit of the weight on her shoulders had lifted with the smoke from the Mt. Weather funeral pyre. 

That night, they set up camp the same way they had the previous night.  They didn’t speak, but Nathan felt a comfort in the silence that hadn’t been there before.  And when he reached out his hand, Clarke didn’t hesitate before taking it in her own. 

They got an early start the next morning, rising almost simultaneously.  Nathan was amazed at how quickly they had adjusted, moving around each other as if they had been doing this for years.  When the fire had been doused and everything had been packed up, they started the day’s trek. 

Eventually, they came upon an overgrown and crumbling statute of a seated man with a sad, serious and wise expression.  Nathan knew from the run-down his father gave him on the way back to Camp Jaha that Clarke had led them to Ton DC, Nathan also knew that hundreds had died here in a missile strike by the Mountain Men.  What he didn’t know is why Clarke had led them there. 

“Clarke, how do you know they aren’t going to attack us if we try to walk in?”  Nathan was suddenly nervous.  They had gone four whole days without seeing even a glimpse of the Grounders, and he couldn’t imagine that streak could continue. 

Clarke shook her head.  “You missed a lot, Nathan.  I’m pretty sure the Grounders are still under strict orders from their Commander, Lexa, not to touch me.”  For a split second, Nathan watched her face crumple.  She shook it off quickly.  “Do you trust me?”  He didn’t hesitate before nodding.  “Let’s go.”

They walked into the wreckage of the village.  There was no sign of life…but other than the splintered buildings and debris, there was no sign of death, either.  No bodies that Nathan could see.  He looked to Clarke, puzzled.  She sighed.  “The Grounders take care of their own.”

Nathan wanted to ask so badly why they were here, but he trusted that Clarke would tell him if and when she was ready.  He took a seat on a fallen log in what he guessed would have been the middle of the village.  After a few minutes, Clarke sat down heavily next to him.  “Hundreds of people died here when the missile hit.”

 “I know…”  Nathan started.

“No, you don’t.  I _let_ them die.  Raven and I overheard Cage’s plan to bomb the village.  I was supposed to warn them.”  She didn’t continue for several minutes.  When she started speaking again, her voice was strained.  “I got here in just enough time, but Lexa didn’t want me to warn anybody.  She said it would tip off the Mountain to the fact that we had an inside man, that it would doom our plan.”

“Bellamy.”  Realization started to dawn on Nathan.  He felt sick at the choice that Clarke had faced.

“And it wasn’t just Grounders.  Octavia was here.  Kane was here.  _My mother_ was here.  And I still listened to Lexa.”  She spat Lexa’s name as if it were a curse. 

There was something here that Nathan was missing, but he supposed it didn’t matter.  Again, he waited for Clarke to say more.

“You can’t possibly tell me that was the right decision.  That it was the decision _Bellamy_ would have made.”  There was anger in her voice, but he didn’t know the target.

Nathan sighed.  “I don’t know, Clarke.  I can’t tell you I would have made the same decision.  It’s messed up.  But hindsight is 20/20, and I wasn’t the one who had to make that decision.  _You_ were.  You and no one else.  You had to make a split second decision, an impossible one, and anyone claiming they would have made a better one is full of shit.”

Clarke raised her eyes slowly to his, and Nathan could swear there was something like wonder there.  “How can you be so understanding?  There’s _so much blood_ on my hands, it’ll never wash off.”

He took her hand in his.  “You asked me if I trust you.  I know I’ve been a coward in the past, and I know it seems like I’ve doubted you at times, but the answer is yes.  It’ll always be yes.  Clarke, if I had to pick anyone to make these kinds of decisions, it’d be you.”  He held her gaze.

They sat like that for what seemed like an eternity, hand in hand, eyes locked on one another.  Finally, Clarke let Nathan pull her slowly to her feet and lead her out of the village.  She didn’t let go of his hand for the rest of the day.


	6. Good days.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Post 2x16 (spoilers!)
> 
> Clarke and Nathan visit an empty field and spend an afternoon fishing.

They reached their third destination early of the evening of the sixth day.  From what Nathan could tell, it wasn’t much of anything, just an open field.  It was clear from the trampled grass and evidence of campfires that it had recently been occupied by a lot of people, maybe even an army.  But now there was little left except for a tall, thick wooden pole…

Clarke walked to it and placed her hand softly against it.  She stood like that for a long time.

Clarke’s voice was so low he didn’t catch what she had said the first time.  Her head was bowed and she hadn’t turned around

“Clarke?”

“I killed Finn.  Right here.  I kissed him, told him I loved him, held him and put a knife in him.  And he thanked me for it.”

Nathan’s heart broke for Clarke for the third time in their short time together.  She was bound and determined to torture herself for every decision she had made over the last few weeks, and it made him ache, because he was pretty sure that she was the only one who couldn’t see that she had done the best she could.

He wasn’t going to stop this, because maybe this was what she needed in order to finally come home.  But he’d be damned if he was going to let her cast herself as the monster of this story.

“My dad told me.”  He approached her slowly and put a hand on her shoulder.  “He also told said it was one of the bravest, most merciful things he’d ever seen.”

She turned to face him, and all of a sudden, tears were streaming down her face.  Nathan felt like he had been hit in the chest with a hammer.  _Clarke doesn’t cry_ , he thought in disbelief.  _Clarke never cries._   And then, _Clarke, please don’t cry_. 

His arms reached for her without another thought.  Clarke walked into them, buried her face in his chest and sobbed.  Nathan gently hugged her to him.  She cried so hard and so long that he felt her legs start to buckle.  He lowered them both to the ground, then dropped an arm to encircle her waist, with the other reaching to swing her legs around so he could cradle her on his lap.

Nathan pressed his lips to the top of her head and made soft, comforting sounds into her hair, stroking his hand up and down her back.  Eventually, her sobs started to subside and her breathing slowed, but she didn’t make any effort to move. 

 _This_ , he thought to himself.  _This is the only thing I ever want to do.  Always.  Just be what she needs._   _Whatever she needs_.  In his short, stupid life, he had been the Chief Guard’s son, a thief, a convict, a smart-ass, the lieutenant to a rebel king, and a coward.  Now all he wanted to do was be Clarke’s pillar.

After a long while, Nathan realized that she had cried herself to sleep.  He attempted to get up to grab her bedroll so she could be more comfortable, but without opening her eyes, Clarke tightened her hold on him.  “Please don’t let go.”

“You got it, boss,” Nathan said softly.  He shifted them around so that they lay on their sides in the crushed grass, with him curled tightly around her from behind, enclosing her in his arms.  Though the air was chilly now that the sun had set, and the ground was hard and rocky, Nathan had never felt this content in his entire life.  He matched his breathing to hers and drifted to sleep.

The next morning, he woke to find himself covered with one of the blankets they had taken from Mt. Weather, his jacket cushioning his head…and Clarke still curled up in front of him.  Which meant that at some point, she had gotten up, grabbed their gear, unpacked the blanket, and then made a conscious decision to get back into his arms.  His neck and back were killing him from spending a night on the packed ground, but they didn’t hurt enough to wipe the sappy smile off his face.  Nathan took the next few minutes to compose himself before quietly calling Clarke’s name.  He didn’t know where they were headed next, but he didn’t want to waste another moment of their time together asleep.

She turned in his arms, looked up at him and gave him a genuine smile.  And even though the sky was overcast, Nate felt like he was being warmed by the sun.  “Time to get up?”  she murmured questioningly.  He felt his lips curling up into a smile to mirror hers and simply nodded.

That day as they hiked, Clarke not only matched his pace, but stopped from time to time to point out and gather different plants, explaining their medicinal properties.  She had her know-it-all voice back on (though a bit mellower than it used to be), and he would never remember any of what she was saying, but it didn’t matter.  He was just happy to see that the dead-inside look was fading from her beautiful blue eyes.

Around early afternoon, they followed a stream to a small lake, and Nathan asked Clarke if she would mind if they fished for a little bit.  They technically didn’t need to, since he had grabbed plenty of food and supplies from Mt. Weather before they left, but Nathan was craving the taste of fresh food, one of many things he loved about being on the ground as opposed to the Ark.  And the water was clear enough that he could see silver flashes of fish, and too shallow to hide any giant snake-things.  Clarke agreed readily, helped him find two long straight branches and watched as he lashed their knives to the wood with vines.  “You know, I never went on any of the fishing trips,” Clarke mused as she looked on. 

“Yeah, I know.”  Nathan grinned.  “That’s because Bellamy thought you were crap with a spear.”

She nudged him with her foot.  “Shut up.”  She paused, then shrugged.  “That’s not the first time I’ve heard that, though.  And …it might be true.”

He chuckled.  Clarke was pretty much always honest, even about the small stuff.  “Well, maybe you just never had the right teacher.”

They spent the next couple of hours knee deep in the cool water, pants rolled up, splashing around and not doing a particularly good job of catching fish.  Nathan managed to catch two and Clarke managed to barely miss stabbing herself in the foot more than half a dozen times.  “Okay, let’s stop, because I don’t want to have to carry you after you maim yourself,” Nathan said, only half joking.

“Mmm, well, someone is a terrible teacher.”  Clarke smirked.

“And someone may not get any of this fish if she doesn’t take that back,” Nathan shot back.

They stood, smiling at each other.  Those smiles stayed on their faces as Nathan showed Clarke how to clean and gut the fish, and Clarke showed Nathan the fastest way to start a fire.  As they ate in comfortable silence, Nathan thought to himself that though his end goal was to convince Clarke to come back to Camp Jaha, he wouldn’t complain if they stayed out on their own for a while longer.  A lot longer.  In fact, if it so happened that she decided she never wanted to go back, he could be okay with that too, if it wasn’t for his dad.   His smile finally faded on that thought, and when he glanced up at Clarke, he noticed that her expression had become grim as well. 

“Clarke.  What’s wrong?” 

“I had a really good day with you today, Nate.”  The flatness in her tone contradicted her words.

“Okay…then what happened to your smile?”  He started to feel anxious – he didn’t want her to start backsliding and he didn’t know how to stop it.

“It’s just…it somehow feels wrong that I can still have good days, after everything that’s happened.”  She didn’t say it out loud, but Nathan could practically hear the added _after all I’ve done_ that was undoubtedly sounding in her mind.

He said nothing.  Instead, he turned and unpacked their bedrolls, laying them side by side.  He laid down on his side, pulled their blankets around him and waited, his heart in his throat.  She sat staring at him for more than a minute, and gave her head a tiny shake, the expression on her face disbelieving.  Then she looked steadily into his eyes, walked over to Nathan’s side and lay down on her bedroll facing him.  He slowly inched closer to her until he could easily tuck the blankets around her body.

All was silence, except for the crackling of the fire, Clarke’s breath and the pounding of Nathan’s heart in his ears.  “Clarke, you, more than anyone I know, deserve to have good days.”

His eyes were trained on hers as she blinked back sudden tears.  Slowly, Clarke shifted up to brush her lips against his cheek.  A million thoughts and desires blazed through Nathan’s head in that instant, but instead of acting on any of them, he lay back, encircled her wrist with his hand and drew her arm around him.  As she curled into his side with her head on his chest and he felt her relax into sleep, he spoke so quietly that he was almost sure she wouldn’t hear him.  “I had a really good day with you today, too, Clarke.”


	7. Back to the beginning.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Post 2x16 (spoilers!).
> 
> Nathan and Clarke find themselves back at the dropship, and their relationship takes another turn.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hi all! Thanks to everyone for the positive feedback, it's kept me going!
> 
> This might be the end of the story, but I haven't decided yet. I'm contemplating one more chapter (which would require another change in rating, if you know what I mean...), but we'll see.
> 
> Again, thanks so much for reading and commenting! I've had a lot of fun writing this.

Nathan didn’t want to remember a time when it didn’t feel right to be holding Clarke’s hand.  Ever since their day at the lake the week before, their daily hikes had become more like strolls, the two of them walking side by side, fingers intertwined, talking for hours about their lives before the ground, before life had become a never-ending fight for survival. 

He told her about the time he listened to Garth Brooks non-stop for 2 months until his dad had erupted in protest.  She told him about the time she had gotten in trouble for drawing a mountain-scape on her walls in permanent marker when she was ten.  He told her all of the knock-knock jokes he knew, which took something like three hours.  She had laughed at every single one of them, and even told a couple of her own.  She told him about being an apprentice under her mother in medical, and Nathan could see how it had taught her to keep level-headed and analytical under stressful circumstances.  He talked about growing up without a mother, and he held her as she brokenly talked about her father’s death and her mother’s part in it. 

Each night, they held each other as they fell asleep. 

With each passing day, Nathan could see the desperation and despair and stress of all that had happened slowly ebb from Clarke’s body.  The smiles that had been so rare in their first two months on the ground made more frequent appearances, and every time they did, Nathan was knocked breathless.  Grim Clarke was beautiful, but smiling Clarke?  Nothing else compared. 

He was pretty sure she was still leading them somewhere specific, but he could also see that she was delaying the next stop in her self-recrimination tour.  Nathan had no problem with that.  Because even though Clarke’s thoughts were occupied with coming to terms with the decisions she had made, Nathan thought maybe it was just as important for her to be able to be a normal person for a little while.  Clarke had taken on the responsibility of looking out for everyone’s survival from the moment she hit the ground, and Nathan thought what she needed most was the opportunity to breathe without that crushing responsibility, at least for a little while.

Nathan didn’t know how this would all play out if and when they got back to Camp Jaha.  Now that the adults had landed, would Clarke’s leadership burden be eased?  Would she let it, or would she and Bellamy continue shouldering the responsibility of keeping their people alive? 

 _Bellamy_.  Nathan cringed a little thinking about how his friend had stayed back at camp, while Nathan was out here with Clarke.  He knew how Bellamy felt about her.  With the way Bellamy looked at Clarke when he thought she wasn’t looking, every kid in camp had known, except Clarke herself.  What Nathan didn’t know is how Clarke felt about Bellamy.  It was obvious that she trusted and respected Bellamy, that she cared about him a lot and that they were partners and friends.  But was it love?  Or could it be?

He stopped his train of thought right there.  None of it mattered, because right here, right now, Clarke was holding _his_ hand and smiling at _him_ , and he was on top of the damned world. 

It had been over two weeks from the night she found him in the woods when he started to recognize their surroundings.  They were going back to the dropship.  Nathan felt panic start to bubble in his stomach.  He didn’t want to go back.  He didn’t want to go back to the place where he had ignored her, and failed her, time and time again.  He wanted to stay out here in the woods, where he was her friend and her support system and maybe something more.  He wanted to stay out here in the woods where, when Clarke looked up at him, he felt kind of like a hero.  Like _her_ hero.   

But at the same time, if she was headed there, she needed to.  And Nathan didn’t want to stand in the way, not when they had come so far together already.  And so, when she led him by the hand into the remains of their old camp, he kept quiet and let her.

They stood in the debris side by side, looking at the doors of the dropship in silence until Nathan couldn’t take it anymore.  “What are we doing here, Clarke?”  Nathan’s voice sounded angry in his ears, and he immediately took her hand softly to let her know he wasn’t.

“This is where it all started, Nathan.  This is where I started to lose myself.  This is where I let Lincoln be tortured.  This is where I closed the dropship door on Octavia and Bellamy and Finn.”

Nathan thought back to that stormy night when he let himself get caught up in Bellamy’s rage, the sorrow of more dead kids, and the fear of death at the point of a spear.  He had felt so _righteous_ watching them torture the silent Grounder at the time, but thinking about it now made him sick to his stomach, especially after being told of all Lincoln had done for them since.  And then he thought about the battle with the Grounders, when he had pushed Clarke into the safety of dropship while Bellamy fought for his life outside.  Nathan remembered with a surge of shame that it had been Finn who had gone out to save Bellamy.  If Nathan had gone instead, Finn wouldn’t have snapped, and Clarke would have one less death on her hands…

“Yeah.  And this is where I _helped_ Bellamy torture Lincoln.  This is where I left my friend to get killed in order to save my own skin.  You think you’re the only one with regrets?”  His voice rose.  “This is where I – where all of us - let you and Bellamy take on the burden of keeping a bunch of ungrateful delinquent asses alive.  This is where I was a coward.”

Clarke turned to face him, shaking her head violently and starting to speak.  “No, Clarke, let me finish.  There are a lot of things in my life, things that I did, things that I didn’t do, that I hate and regret and would change if I could.  But I can’t.  All I can do is keep living and try to do better.  You inspire me to be better.”

Nathan took a deep breath before continuing.  He wanted to get this right.  He had to make her understand.  “I get it, I do.  Nothing can erase the deaths of all those people, and I wish like hell that it hadn’t gone down like that, both for their sakes and yours.  But what you’ve done is done.  And we’re still standing here because of it.  All those kids back at Camp Jaha?  They’re alive because of you.”

“Maybe I’m a bad guy, but I just can’t bring myself to be sorry for that.”

Clarke reached out for him, still shaking her head.  “You're not a bad guy.  Not a coward.”  Clarke’s voice was urgent.  She stepped toward him, then placed her hands softly on either side of his face.  Nathan’s heart stopped and he held his breath as her lips moved closer to his. 

“You’re Nathan Miller.”  She smiled and then she was kissing him, and there was nothing else in the world but the two of them.


End file.
